I was eight years old when my mother came up to me and said that I could go
out and play but I told her I would rather draw what was on the table than
go out. She told me how she liked art in high school and my farther was a
cartoonist for his high school yearbook. When I was in 6th grade, a
teacher named Mrs. Harrigan said that I drew very well and would I do a
poster of every animal in South America for my report on South America. I
was very serious about it, and I worked on it for a long time doing each
animal in colored pencil. She loved it and I was so happy. She put it in
the front of the room on a bulletin board and showed the class. It was
then that I decided that I liked art because it made me feel good.

I was now in high school and my grandfather ( he lived in Denver) on my
mother's side was a lawyer who's entire family went to Yale for many
generations, and became lawyers. I was supposed to do this and I accepted
it and was ready to go to Yale, be a lawyer and he was going to pay for all
of this. My high school art teacher at the time took me outside in my
senior year and said that I should be an artist because of my skill and
talent, I said that I was going to be lawyer and go to Yale. He laughed
and said that I would not like law and that I needed to be an artist. I
thought about it and decided to be an artist, go to San Jose State art
school and did so, graduating in 1970. I wanted to get married so I
thought that I needed a job. I remembered that art teacher and thought
that I could do that for a few years and then do my thing in the art world.
Thirty-four years later I am still teaching art and I never had that one
man show or did my own artwork, but I would not have changed it, for I love
to teach and this is what I do.